Linda McMahon for Senate catch-all thread

[Loss]

 

Weird. And while it's refreshing for a Republican ad to show a lesbian couple, I'm not sure I understand the purpose.

[kjh]

I don't get the lesbian conotations.

[Loss]

Two women driving to work together, it was my first thought.

[Bix]

Carpooling? Roommates? Heterosexual life partners?

[Loss]

Perhaps, I'm half-joking, but the funnier part to me is that they didn't have anything in the quick ad showing them leaving work, picking the other one up at her house, etc.

[kjh]

The cheesy stereo "Oh yeahs" don't help.

[rovert]

The cheesy stereo "Oh yeahs" don't help.

How it it ends is very Budweiser or something.

[Ditch]

WON:

The Connecticut Post ran a huge story on Vince by investigative reporter Brian Lockhart, who has

been covering Linda’s campaign. It was balanced and a hell of a story. I think Vince was probably as

straight forward as any interview I can recall in a long time. ... They had a lot on the

steroid issue, with Vince saying he’s not even sure you can say steroids are bad for your health or in

some cases good for your health because there hasn’t been enough research done...

 

The next day, the newspaper ran an editorial criticizing both McMahons for their statements about

steroids. They said Linda’s remarks in Business Week could have gone away because her campaign

spokesman said Linda was opposed to illegal drugs, but then Vince made his statements in the article

saying, “I don’t know there’s really been any great research you can point to that definitely says this is

deleterious to your health or in some case if helps you or whatever...So I don’t think there’s enough

empirical research done, certainly not by the government.”

Shorter Vince McMahon: Linda isn't going to win so I'm not even going to try to police what I'm saying anymore.

 

I mean... either he's a complete moron or he doesn't care. It's one thing to be in denial about steroid consequences, but why would you SAY IT?

[kjh]

If he said anything else, then I think Lockhart or someone else in the Connecticut media would have pointed out that he was hypocrite because of this exchange in his Congressional interview:

 

BY MR. LEVISS: Q Do you believe that the use of steroids can cause long‐term health risks for users?

Mr. McDevitt. He is not a doctor. I just want to say this. He is not a medical here. He's not here to testify about medical opinions or anything like that. He's here to testify about the subject matters he was told about. And his views and medical opinions about the health risk of steroids is so far beyond his competence as a layman it's not even a fair question to begin with.

Mr. Leviss. It's a perfectly fair question.

BY MR. LEVISS: Q I understand you're not a physician. I'm interested in your answer and your opinion on whether the use of steroids can cause long‐term health risks to users.

Mr. McDevitt. Do you have a foundation that this layman would be capable of rendering a medical opinion on that subject?

Mr. Leviss. I'm going to ask the question and I'm going to expect an answer.

Mr. McDevitt. You can ask any question you want, but do you have a foundation for believing this layman could render a medical opinion about the long‐term effects of steroids?

Mr. Leviss. I believe that this gentleman has extensive experience in professional wrestling and has familiarity with this issue. And I think it's fair to ask his layman's opinion about it, yes.

Mr. McDevitt. How would he have familiarity of the long‐term effects of steroid use? He's not a doctor; he's not a physician. Have you established any foundation that he studied the subject in a scientific fashion or anything that would give a meaningful opinion on the subject? No.

BY MR. LEVISS: Q Do you have an opinion on this?

A I'm not a doctor. I would suggest ‐‐ if I wanted to know long‐term effects of any drug, I think the first place I would go is the FDA. That would be the first place I would go. And, quite frankly, I don't think the FDA tells anyone about the long‐term effects of steroid usage or abusage. And I would suggest to you that that might be someplace where your committee and Mr. Waxman, since you have oversight over these areas, might want to begin.

Because that was the first big lie in terms of the FDA producing, I believe, the first steroid called Diablo. And I think if you go there now, rather than me speculate or even read about speculation in the newspaper, which we've all read, I think if you go back to the FDA, I would like to read ‐‐ and perhaps you would like to read ‐‐ what the purposes of these drugs are and what the long‐term effects really are.

Because I think everybody would benefit from that ‐‐ the Federal Drug Administration, which I think you guys have some degree of oversight over; and whether or not the drugs should have been produced to begin with, knowing what you know now about the possibility of long‐term effects of steroids, whether or not there would be a review by the FDA as to whether or not that drug should continue to be produced or whether or not there should be review into determining what are the long‐term effects, what are the advantages, what are the disadvantages.

I believe most drugs, prescription drugs, tell you that because the FDA tested things of that nature. So answering your question, I think if I wanted to know more, I'm a layman, I don't have an opinion in terms of doctors and that sort of thing; but I would probably go back to the FDA, which is where I suggest if you really want to clean up this mess that might be where you want to go.

Q It sounds like you've been some thinking about this topic. I'm interested if, from a layman's perspective, you have a belief about whether there can be long‐term health risks from the use of steroids.

A I'm not a doctor. I don't know.

Q I understand. I'm not asking if you know; I'm asking if you have any beliefs.

A I'm a layman. I don't know. I would like to know that. I would like no know whether or not there are any long‐term effects and, if so, what are they. Can you tell me?

Q What would you tell WWE talent who asked you if there were long‐term health risks from using steroids?

A I would tell them the very same thing I just told you. I'm not a doctor. I don't know if there are really any long‐term effects of steroid usage.

I guess maybe I could from a layman standpoint look at professional body builders. And again I don't know of any long‐term effects, but there might be some. I'm not a doctor.

Q And what do you conclude from looking at long‐term body builders?

A How many times do you want me to answer that question?

I just said, let me repeat, I don't know. Do you know?

Q I don't know.

A You're a layman just like me. I don't know what long‐term effects because the FDA hasn't bothered to tell me or anybody else.

Q Have you sought a medical opinion from a medical expert about whether there can be long‐term health risks from the use of steroids?

A No.

[Bix]

Cole hung up on a POLITICO reporter who called seeking his recollection of McMahon, then, according to [World Wrestling Entertainment lawyer Jerry] McDevitt, alerted him to the call. The next day, McDevitt provided the following e-mail, as written by Cole:

 

“I can truly say without hesitation I’m thankful for how Linda handled my situation. Without me going out into the world and finding myself, god knows where I’d be,” reads the email. The two alleged harassers, he continued, “were fired for there actions and they NEVER returned to the Company. That alone is more than most Companies would do now (let alone 20yrs ago) I’m sending a check to Linda’s campaign fund this evening. She is after all my favorite type of Politician…Fiscally Sound. As a life long Republican I hope she wins.”

I think we can agree that they bought him off, can't we?

[sek69]

I really wish someone, anyone, would do some actual research to back up any candidate's claim of being fiscally sound.

 

 

Is it fiscally sound to stop drug testing because your competitor isn't and as such eating your lunch? Is it fiscally sound to sign one of your top stars to a 20 year contract and then a couple of months later come back and say "you know what, we can't afford this"? Is it fiscally sound to spend money building an entire developmental promotion (when you already had one established with a self-sustaining promotion) just because your agents like living in Florida?

[Dan]

Cole hung up on a POLITICO reporter who called seeking his recollection of McMahon, then, according to [World Wrestling Entertainment lawyer Jerry] McDevitt, alerted him to the call. The next day, McDevitt provided the following e-mail, as written by Cole:

 

“I can truly say without hesitation I’m thankful for how Linda handled my situation. Without me going out into the world and finding myself, god knows where I’d be,” reads the email. The two alleged harassers, he continued, “were fired for there actions and they NEVER returned to the Company. That alone is more than most Companies would do now (let alone 20yrs ago) I’m sending a check to Linda’s campaign fund this evening. She is after all my favorite type of Politician…Fiscally Sound. As a life long Republican I hope she wins.”

I think we can agree that they bought him off, can't we?

 

It could be that he's just really ... confused? In 2004 he wrote a letter the the WON which was at least semi-positive on the WWE. ("As the years pass, I even find myself in some way thankful to the company for that [getting rid of Phillips/Garvin], because it brought truth to all that I said"). This is just a few years after ripping them to sheds in the WP interview.

[kjh]

Do you really think the McMahons would leave it to chance that Tom Cole wouldn't badmouth them to the media, given that it's probably the most damaging skeleton in their closet and it was bound to come up eventually? What makes Cole's new found love for Linda particularly suspicious is that his communication with POLITICO went via Jerry McDevitt.

[Ditch]

Who's Tom Cole?

[kjh]

Tom Cole was the ring boy at the centre of the WWF's sex scandal. Irv Muchnick has covered this story in great detail on his blog.

 

By the way, from Dave and Bryan's tone on their latest radio show, it does sound like he was paid off.

 

Dave: I think there was some thought that this could come and disrupt the campaign and you know I'd heard of late that it was not going to be a campaign issue, whatever that meant ... obviously Tom Cole is now close to Jerry McDevitt...

Bryan: How about that.

Dave: Yeah, it was quite interesting...

[Bix]

Cole hung up on a POLITICO reporter who called seeking his recollection of McMahon, then, according to [World Wrestling Entertainment lawyer Jerry] McDevitt, alerted him to the call. The next day, McDevitt provided the following e-mail, as written by Cole:

 

“I can truly say without hesitation I’m thankful for how Linda handled my situation. Without me going out into the world and finding myself, god knows where I’d be,” reads the email. The two alleged harassers, he continued, “were fired for there actions and they NEVER returned to the Company. That alone is more than most Companies would do now (let alone 20yrs ago) I’m sending a check to Linda’s campaign fund this evening. She is after all my favorite type of Politician…Fiscally Sound. As a life long Republican I hope she wins.”

I think we can agree that they bought him off, can't we?

 

It could be that he's just really ... confused? In 2004 he wrote a letter the the WON which was at least semi-positive on the WWE. ("As the years pass, I even find myself in some way thankful to the company for that [getting rid of Phillips/Garvin], because it brought truth to all that I said"). This is just a few years after ripping them to sheds in the WP interview.

 

Could you scan or transcribe the whole letter? Thanks.

[sek69]

Wasn't Tom Cole the one who was planted in the audience of the Donahue show to be the big "gotcha" against the WWF, only to have him basically apologize to the McMahons for the embarrassment it caused their company that he got molested by their employees. Kind of how Hector Guerrero was apologizing for Eddy's death.

 

Also Cole wasn't exactly 100% credible pre-(alleged) payoff if I recall correctly. Didn't he name Patterson as one of the perpetrators just because he was openly gay?

[Bix]

http://wrestlingperspective.com/issue/78/cole1.html

Wrestling Perspective: But Pat Patterson never made an overt pass at you?

 

Tom Cole: He grabbed my ass. Except that, no. Maybe because of my age at the time that he didn’t want to get out of hand.

So I went back to work for them that Monday. I went up to the offices. Later on that week was when the Phil Donahue show was to air. I stayed in the Sheraton in Stamford for the whole week. Linda McMahon said to me, she was like, “We’re going to send a car for you so you can go shopping. I’m sending $5,000 over so you can go get clothes and whatever you need and ba-ba-ba.” So I went and I did that. Then she said, I guess the next day, I remember getting the phone call from her, and she said, “Listen, Tom, there’s a show coming up tomorrow. Phil Donahue. I would be honored,” I can’t believe I believed this shit now when I look at it, “if you were there.” I was like, “Sure, no problem.” So we go to the show and we’re in the limo. Steve Planamenta was the public relations head at Titan Sports at the time. We’re sitting in the car with Linda and Vince and I’m sitting there and Vince is going over his cue cards that Steve Planamenta was writing out about possible questions that would be asked and how to answer them. He was beating around the bush about everything and not giving a straight-forward answer. This that and the other thing. Kind of like they do now. So I said to him, “Why don’t you come out and like be truthful. Something happened in your company that you’re trying to fix,” and he just looked at me like I had five heads. I was like, “People will understand that. What you’re doing now is making a joke of yourself.” Sure enough, I don’t remember the show, but people were laughing at the whole subject and it was kind of like a joke. He didn’t do what I said. He did it the way he wanted to, which is whatever.

 

But I went there and I sat there in the audience with Linda McMahon and Miss Elizabeth. She was friends with Linda. I sat in the audience. No one brought my name up because they were tipped off that I had gone back to the WWF and that I was in the audience somewhere, but nobody knew what I looked like. They didn’t know. No one brought my name up. I later come to find out that Vince had it planned that if anyone brought my name up he was going to say, “Here’s Mr. Cole now,” unbeknownst to me that that was going to happen. We get in the back after the show’s over and a producer for Phil Donahue comes in the dressing room and he’s talking to Vince, “Oh, it was a great show. Good crowd response” and everything else. He’s like, “Man, I wish we could have had that kid Tom Cole here. That would have made the show.” Vince looks at me and he turns around and says to the guy, “Well, there’s Mr. Cole.” The guy’s like, “Get the fuck out of here. I can’t believe that this kid is here. Oh, my God.” He was pissed because he would have loved for me to be on the show. I guess Vince was using it as a pull if someone said, “What about this kid Tom Cole?” He would have been, “Well, we settled with this kid and everything’s fine.” But it didn’t come to that because I guess everyone on stage got wind of what had happened a couple of days earlier so they didn’t bring my name up. It didn’t happen.

[Dan]

Here's the letter. It's referring to Dave's (since abandoned, apparently) History of the WWF series. 'Semi-positive' might have been a little strong, but it's far from virulently negative.

 

You did a wonderful job looking back at the 1992 scandals. Those were hard times in my life, but I lived through them. As hard as I may try, I realize I won't ever forget what happened in my childhood. The greatest thing that came out of all that I went through was that Mel Phillips and Terry Garvin left the company and never returned. I can't begin to tell you how important their leaving was to me, as well as how many young people it no doubt saved from the same horror. There is not a lot I'm grateful to the WWF for, however, I am grateful that they never allowed Phillips or Garvin to return to the company. As the years pass, I even find myself in some way thankful to the company for that, because it brought truth to all that I said. As I'm writing this, another similar story is breaking involving a wrestling promoter and a young boy. No matter how things change, they seem to stay the same. Wrestling was Mel Phillips' candy and without the WWF, he lost it.

Tom Cole

[jdw]

By the way, from Dave and Bryan's tone on their latest radio show, it does sound like he was paid off.

 

Dave: I think there was some thought that this could come and disrupt the campaign and you know I'd heard of late that it was not going to be a campaign issue, whatever that meant ... obviously Tom Cole is now close to Jerry McDevitt...

Bryan: How about that.

Dave: Yeah, it was quite interesting...

That's a classic Dave "read between the lines" moment.

 

John

[kjh]

Bryan's completely unsubtle sarcastic tone makes Dave a lot easier to read nowadays.

[jdw]

I think it hurts Dave's old slim thread of deniability of just what's he's saying between the lines. I mean...

 

"How about that" comes across as "That sure sounds like they paid his ass off, Dave!"

 

Dave was trying to go with the old way of talking, but Bryan's having too much fun with it.

 

 

John

[Cox]

In other words, Mike Tenay of the Observer radio shows?

[sek69]

From today's Herb:

 

--McMahon was endorsed for the Republican nomination to the senate by Mayor John Harkins of Stratford, CT. "Linda McMahon knows how to create jobs and a foster a favorable business environment. I'm endorsing Linda because we need to focus on improving our economy, and she's the one who knows how to fix it."

What job has Linda created? Doesn't the WWE usually increase their profits by doing a post-WrestleMania endeavoring almost every year? A lot of behind the scenes jobs have been cut from their internet/new media/whatever Shane was in charge of as well.

 

So what proof is there anywhere that Linda can create jobs other than other Republicans saying she can?

[Loss]

What proof is there that Linda has been anything more than Vince's wife with a title?